Carpets and other tufted articles generally are formed by passing a backing material through a tufting machine in which a series of needles are reciprocated so as to deliver tufts of yarn into the backing material. Over the years, tufting machines have been further developed and provided with various enhancements designed to produce new and more varied pattern effects, such as cut and loop pile patterns, shifting needle bar patterns, as well as producing different tufted fabrics, such as synthetic or artificial grass turf products and patterned rugs.
A problem that exists, however, with the formation of specialty products such as carpet tiles and narrower or smaller rugs or carpets, is that such products often typically are run on specialty machines that are smaller in size, which can limit production rates. Running such products on larger, full-sized tufting machines also can require additional operations to separate or form the tiles or rugs from the full-sized tufted fabrics, and generally limits the type of patterns that can be formed across the width of the tufted fabrics to a single pattern.
Therefore, it can be seen that a needs exists for a system and method for forming tufted carpets and other, similar tufted fabrics that addresses the foregoing and other related and related problems in the art.